


comfort

by mousecat



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Break Up, M/M, Post-Break Up, Sad, i think, it's fine tho, sad fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 23:22:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20299630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousecat/pseuds/mousecat
Summary: Love is so short, forgetting is so long.





	comfort

**Author's Note:**

> "Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido."  
(Love is so short, forgetting is so long.)  
\- Pablo Neruda

Tooru was sitting by the window with the comforter wrapped loosely around his shoulders. It was the first thing Hajime saw when he opened his eyes. He blinked slowly, otherwise unmoving so as not to alert Tooru that he was awake yet. 

Hajime took in how pale Tooru looked in the morning sunlight, gazing out the window, unguarded and gorgeous. Even though Hajime only had a thin sheet covering him, he felt warm and comfortable, his bed seemed softer than usual. Tooru shifted and the comforter slipped down a little, exposing his bare shoulder, but he didn't seem to notice. This was the type of intimacy Hajime craved, that he could treasure if he had the chance. 

Hajime rolled himself in the flat sheet and off the bed. “Isn't it enough that you hog the covers all night? Did you really have to steal them now, too?” he asked as he went to Tooru, stopping right in front of him and staring down at him. 

“Iwa-chan, I can't help what I do in my sleep! I'll share now.” Tooru spread his arms, opening the comforter and inviting Hajime in. He settled so they were pressed together in the armchair by the window, and Tooru nuzzled close and kissed along Hajime’s jaw. 

“Flirting won’t save you," Hajime chided. 

"Fair enough," Tooru sighed. From the window sill he picked up a large mug. "Will tea?" 

With raised eyebrows Hajime took the mug and sipped. It was milky black tea with what tasted like about half a kilo of sugar. He closed his eyes, letting the hot sweet drink warm him from the inside. It was exactly the way he liked it, especially when he wanted comfort. 

"You know me too well." Tooru smiled at him. 

Wrapped together in the comforter, Hajime was slightly too warm, but he didn't care. It was perfect, feeling his skin against Tooru's, sitting quietly in the early morning sunshine. Tooru smelled like himself underneath the faint scent of sleep sweat. 

"I miss you so much," Hajime said. Tooru glanced at him, but didn't respond. The familiar frustration lapped weakly against the edge of his heart, but Hajime had already accepted his own powerlessness some time ago. It was harder to get angry as he started accepting he would never change things. Tooru never compromised for Hajime. Hajime had long ago learned he could mold himself to Tooru or be discarded by him; Tooru did not compromise. For others maybe, but not for Hajime. "I don't think I'll ever understand why you always struggled to simply tell me what was on your mind. Is it really giving that much away to say you miss me too?"

"You know it's hard for me to talk about my feelings."

"You preferred losing me? That's how little I was worth to you?" This wasn't how Hajime had wanted this to play out, but sometimes he still couldn't help himself. "I had dreams."

"I have dreams, too. They just don't necessarily include Iwa-chan," Tooru said, his tone matter of fact, the use of the old nickname flippant. He wasn't even trying to be malicious. His indifference was cruel in that it was so thoughtless, so disinterested. 

Hajime pressed his lips together and imagined crying over some other hurt, not the ache of losing a pillar in his life, a pillar to which Hajime was little more than an optional extra. It would make it easier to allow Tooru to comfort him here.

Hajime took a deep breath. No, that wasn't right. Hajime had mattered. In the end Tooru didn't say it and did very little to show it, but before that, Hajime had mattered. 

"Drink some more tea," Tooru encouraged. "I made it for you."

The feeling of the warm ceramic between his hands alone was comforting. Tooru had been thoughtful at one time. Caring. _Loving_. It was hard to think about though, because it hurt so intensely to have lost that. Anger was easier. Hajime could get through the day when he was angry. 

Tooru shifted so he was leaning against Hajime’s chest. “I miss you, too, Iwa-chan.”

“Then why don’t you just say? Why don’t you tell me?” Hajime asked. Back to the same old pattern of useless questions that would go unanswered. Why couldn’t he stop himself?

“Why don’t you tell me why you always get angry?” Tooru countered. He sounded triumphant, as if he’d spotted the clue Hajime had been missing the whole time. Tooru’s pettiness used to be easy to look past when he’d wanted to.

“I did,” Hajime said. “I tried. I told you everything, hoping you would understand, but you only heard what confirmed how you already feel about me. You heard what you could use against me and pretended I never said the rest.” Hajime bit his cheek. He was getting off track. He brushed his fingers through Tooru’s hair, still messy from sleeping. He’d always loved Tooru like this, unpolished in a way he allowed few people to see. Hajime had been proud being on that exclusive list. Feeling it slip away had broken his heart slowly and irreparably. 

“I understand why only heard what you wanted to,” Hajime explained. “I understand, but it still hurts. I still wish you had heard me, what I was actually trying to say. That you saw me like you used to for a moment, met me halfway at least this once.”

Tooru took Hajime’s hand, the one stroking his hair. He laced their fingers together and held their hands to his chest. "You don't know. Maybe one day I will." He leaned his head back to catch Hajime's eye. "You think it's too late for that, don't you?" 

"It feels like it, sometimes," Hajime said, instead of _yes_. "Everyday the chasm between us gets wider. At this point, you'll have to build the bridge to cross it by yourself. I'm too fucking tired to help you, Tooru. You'd think it's just my pride, or some kind of fucked up test I'm giving you to make you prove yourself, but the truth is that you wore me down. I don't have it in me anymore, to do this. And I can't see you putting that kind of effort into us. You wouldn't take a single step onto the bridge I built, and that was when we still meant something to each other. The work you'd have to put in now would be herculean. I've stopped hoping I'm worth it to you."

"If you think that it will never come, it probably never will." 

Hajime couldn't help the bitterness that overwhelmed him. "Of course. It's my fault. It'll always be because I did something wrong. Nothing is ever actually your responsibility."

"So you can be satisfied with this?" Tooru said as if he hadn't spoken. He brushed his thumb along Hajime's knuckles. 

"No, but it doesn't matter. What I want wasn't ever a factor with us."

"Careful, Iwa-chan," Tooru warned. "You know I don't respond to your emotional displays."

Bitter thoughts clamored in Hajime’s head, all of them pointless to express. The only time it would be less helpful to say what he was thinking was in reality, to the real Tooru. He wouldn’t have even given Hajime any warning, just disappeared until he was ready to come back and pretend nothing had happened, forcing Hajime to swallow down his hurt to accommodate him, to trade feeling like a person for maintaining their crumbling relationship.

“It’s easier to fight than to remember when I loved you.” Tooru had moved to face Hajime, straddling his lap. Tooru touched his cheek. He looked sympathetic. “People fall out of love all the time.”

“But you didn’t, because you never loved me in the first place,” Hajime said. This had really gotten away from him, and he could feel tears welling up. “You won’t admit it to me even now, but I was a placeholder while you looked for something better. I don’t think you meant to do it. I don’t think you even realized until it was already done and you didn’t know how to put me off so you let it drag on.” His voice broke.

“I wanted to love you, Iwa-chan,” Tooru said, resting his forehead against Hajime’s. “I really tried.” _Admit it_, Hajime thought. “Then I tried to spare your feelings, but it ended up hurting you worse.”

It was a savage comfort, the truth. And this was as close as he’d ever get to it. Hajime let himself cry.

“I know it was hard for you,” he whispered, their faces still close. He took a deep breath between sentences to keep his voice steady. He could let himself be comforted by Tooru now. Actually, he desperately wanted it. “I think I tried not to see how you really felt, because I wanted you so much. Now it’s over I make myself forget how hard you tried to make it work, because it feels better to believe you were using me all along than to know you cared enough to try, but couldn’t bring yourself to want me in the end.”

“Oh, Iwa-chan. My poor Hajime,” Tooru soothed when he couldn’t get any more words out. “You’re so easy to love. You’re so lovable. That’s not why it didn’t work out.”

“You couldn’t change how you felt any more than I could, I know,” Hajime said. “I know. It doesn’t stop how much it hurts.”

Hajime couldn’t quell the desperate ache. He wanted Tooru here with him for real. That was the problem. He wanted Tooru to hold him when he cried. He wanted to not blame himself for ruining their friendship with his feelings, to not blame Tooru for ruining their friendship with his distance, to have never loved Tooru at all, or to have had Tooru reciprocate.

“It was inevitable,” Hajime sobbed into Tooru’s neck. “I’ve thought about it every day, looked at it from every angle. There was no chance for a peaceful end. I wanted you too much to let go, and you were too...you to be honest with me. I want to hate you for it all, to think you used me as your backup when you couldn’t get anyone else. It wasn’t you though. It wasn’t us. It just was.”

“I think tomorrow you’ll hate me again,” Tooru said. Hajime laughed wetly. “Am I wrong?”

It wasn't a question Hajime knew how to answer.

“I miss you, Iwa-chan.” Up close it was easy to admire how pretty his dark lashes were. His lips too. The anguish of their slow, prolonged break up had killed the love Hajime had felt for so long, but it didn’t stop him from missing loving Tooru. Loving Tooru had felt good, until it didn’t.

“I miss you, too, every day.”


End file.
